Through RJ's Eyes
by Zandoz
Summary: House of 1000 Corpses fan fiction. The beginning of the family that would later be known as the Fireflys. The family that slays together, stays together.
1. Chapter 1

RJ was an ususually large child for his age, and grew to be an exeptionally large adult. His first memories were of perfumed, soft hugs and crooning female voices. He played with his mother's 'friends' and their children, and then his brother Otto grew enough to run and play with him. His mother, a very young woman to have two children already, was the most beautiful woman in the world to him, plus she was a great cook.

An introspective child, he watched everything and everyone with quiet interest and curiosity. He noticed a certain man who seemed to have an interest in his mother, and what caught his attention was the fact he was a clown. A large, blustery, foull-mouthed one.

"RJ, you go next door and play awhile," Eve, his mother, tells him one day. "Take yer brother with you."

"Yeah, me an' yer ma got some things to talk about, heh heh," says the clown, who'd told the boy before his name was Johnny. RJ felt it was a strange name for a clown, but then the man was rather strange. Shrugging, he leads his deformed younger brother Otto outside.

The pair played tag with some of the neighbor kids until some of the older children came along. "Well, if'n it ain't the Giant Twins," sneered one boy. It wasn't that far off the mark if a bit mean-spirited--the brothers were outlandishly oversized. Otto, who some had already taken to calling Tiny, was much ganglier than the older RJ but they both towered over the other children. Otto also had been horribly burned and scarred, giving him a scary, unsettling appearance.

"Whatsamatter, Ogre, got nuthin to say," jeers another pubescent boy. Rufus just scowls but says nothing; he'd never fathomed the animosity his mother's lifestyle created in others.

"His mama's the town slut," says an older girl, twirling her braided pigtails idly. "Ain't that right, whoreson?"

RJ didn't completely understand the whole thing but knew it had something to do with all the guests his mama 'entertained'. Finally, the wheels in his mind having turned a while, he said "I don't see how you can talk, Sue, I saw yer momma doin with the milkman the same thing mine does, but didn't even get no money or cigarrettes for it."

The girl blanched and closed her mouth with an audible snap. "Freaks," she mutters.

Then RJ turned to one of the youngsters who'd taunted him about not having a daddy and snarled, "Yeah, I don' know who my pa is, but _you_ know who yours is. An 'tween the choices I'm glad ta be in _my_ situation."

"You take that back," the boy hollers with fist clenched. Unwisely he stepped toward Rufus, who despite being not quite seven years old was already bigger than the 13-year-old.

Otto put a long arm around RJ's shoulders and shook his head.

"Seems the retard don' want ya ta fight," taunts the boy. "Sons of a dirty whore!" In response the affronted Rufus dove on him like a football player and began pounding his head in the dirt. Patched overalls of both combatants ripped, dust flew and shouts raised.

"Fight! Fight! Fight," chanted the other children.

Eve came running out of the small house hastily throwing a sheer lacy wrap around herself. "RJ," she called to him. "Rufus, stop it!" She pushed the surrounding youngsters aside and grasped her son's already-muscular arm. "That's enough, darlin," she pulls him off the now barely-conscious bully. She glares pointedly at the troublemakers with her piercing eyes who shrank visibly from her steely gaze. Rufus, shaking, buries his dark crew-cut head in his mother's ample bosom. She was sweaty and breathing hard from her exertions with Johnny but still smelled of powder and cheap cosmetics. It was comforting so he allowed Eve to lead him and Otto back in the house.

"Poor RJ," she soothes. "You feel things more than most, don't ya sweetie. Don't you pay those nitwits no mind. "Hey," she says, rubbing his short dark hair. "Yer ma's gonna be a respectable woman soon. I'm a-getting married!"

"M-married," he spoke hopefully.

"Yeah, and you an' Baby Boy will have a daddy."

"Who's gonna be my pa," Rufus asks, bewildered.

"I am, son," chuckles the big clown, entering the room and tucking his shirt in his pants. Most of the greasepaint had worn off, revealing craggy, tanned features and a stubbly beard. "Whut, you think I ain't man enough for yore ma?"

"This is it," declared Eve Johns formerly Wilson, helping her sons out of the truck cab. What greeted them was a vast farmstead, the centerpiece an old three-story farmhouse sprawling like some vast dead creature, surrounded by a wooden picket fence, white paint peeling off it. RJ was happy at the prospect of all that room to roam and play in. He was a bit excited and scared at this major change in his life.

"Looks like a pile o' crap," observed a slight middle-aged man as he scrambled out of the pickup, his salt-and-pepper hair bushed out and stirring in the morning breeze. At the woman's exasperated expression he amended, "At least this character's made an honest woman outta yew. Take ya to the nightclub I performed at, next thing I know yer knocked up. Twice! Bout time you got hitched, ya backwards-ass. Yore supposed to get married _then_ start havin the brats."

"Daddy, watch yore mouth in front o' the younguns," she admonishes. The man scoffs then starts unloading suitcases from the truck.

The new bridegroom hailed them from the porch. "Heyy, Johnny Lee," calls his bride happily, lugging a stuffed bag towards him.

"Rufus Wilson," called the teacher's voice.

"Yes Missus Hinman," answered the boy, snapping to attention.

Sighing, she asks him if he knows the answer to 14 plus 32. "Ahhh...47," he says.

"Close, but incorrect. The answer is 46. Stop daydreaming, Rufus." Mrs. Hinman worked on ignoring the reputation the boy's family had and the town gossip--she just wanted her students to do their schoolwork and learn things that would help them later in life.

Rufus didn't see the point of school other than tormenting children like him. He glanced over at the children in the corner doing the higher-grade studies in the one-room schoolhouse and allowed a small smile of self-satisfaction. Bobby's battered face was heavily contused, plus he had the shame of being beaten by a child half his age.

RJ walked the half mile home, kicking sullenly at the gravel. "RJ, back from school," called his mother. He answered in the affirmative. "How was it," she asked as he entered the spacious kitchen. "What did you learn today?"

"I learned I hate school," the boy replied sourly.

"Ah, surely it wasn't THAT bad," Eve asked while stirring the potatoes in the frying pan. Her thick blonde hair was tied up in a tight bun like the old ladies tended to do, but her thin blouse with no bra (which hid nothing) definately took her out of the little old lady category.

"School is dumb."

Johnny emerged from the back door, having turned the cows into the lower field to pasture. "Johnny, RJ says school is dumb," complains Eve, turning the pork chops.

"Aww, who needs it? I got lotsa interestin books to look at, ones more fun than them borin' ol' textbooks. C'mere." His stepfather leads him to one of his stack of books and tells the wonder-filled RJ he can look through them. They were about deformities, freaks, sexual deviance and serial killers. Much better than arithmetic!

"Johnny Lee, yer just makin things more difficult for _me_. I ain't gonna be able to teach these boys nuthin," she scolds her husband.

Time passed and the big clown came to love his wife's strange sons as his own, and after some initial hesitation they in turn began to trust him. Eve also grew heavy with another child, on that this time was a product of a legitimate marriage. RJ didn't quite know what the think of this new development. His mother got cranky and tired easily, plus her expanding stomach was disconcerting. He wondered if Johnny would stop caring about him and Baby Boy when the baby got there.

Mrs. Johns was actually dressing like the other ladies in Ruggsville county, having discovered that her negliges and corsets no longer fit her bulging middle. She was knitting in her rocking chair on the porch wearing a cotton dress that hung straight from the shoulders like most dresses of that time. Indeed, she appeared most respectable, and the taunts RJ recieved daily had mostly subsided.

RJ ran outside to find Tiny, who was working on the 'fort' they'd started which was made of planks and scraps of wood. Maybe if the baby is another boy he could help with it when he got big enough.

"Whatchoo younguns up to," Hugo asked them bemusedly.

"We're makin a fort," RJ replied. Otto nodded his head enthusiastically. Both were dressed in heavily patched jeans and threadbare flannel shirts with the sleeves rolled up--keeping clothes on the growing giants was a herculean task.

"Now that sounds like fun," the older man says indulgently. No matter how he let on he had real affection for his daughter's bastard offspring.

"Johnny! Daddy," Eve called out suddenly. Hugo rushed to the porch to see her clutching her middle. "I believe it's time," she tells him. When confronted with the news Johnny starts running about all excited.

"Dammit, ain't nothin ta shit yore britches about--she's done this twice already," growls Hugo, who didn't see what all the fuss is about. He herds the expectant parents upstairs. The two brothers, forgotten for the time being, wait at the bottom of the stairs until their grampa returns to tell them he's fetching the midwife. He was in the pickup then gone, leaving Eve breathing and groaning, Johnny anxiously beside her.

After a while Rufus grew tired of waiting and went to peer at his stepfather's books. Hugo soon returned with midwife in tow, an elderly spinster named Marnie Watkins. Wasting no time and with practiced ease she headed directly to the woman in childbirth.

"No I ain't leavin," Johnny could be heard saying from downstairs. "My seed's gonna be comin outta there soon an' I wanna see!"

All this made Rufus nervous who restlessly went to the kitchen to get a glass of milk. Tiny followed him, silent as ever. He was used to his giant brother's mute condition. He could usually tell what he was thinking so it didn't matter anyway. Rufus was also teaching him how to read and write since he couldn't go to regular school.

RJ was stealing cookies out of the jar like he knew he wasn't supposed to when a lusty infant's cry rang out, cutting through the air. Rufus dashed upstairs, his curiosity killing him. Marnie was tying off the umbilical cord as the father observed, entranced and speechless. The midwife cleaned the baby up and handed the squirming bundle to Eve. She wore an exhausted but content expression, a blissful smile spreading across her beautiful face. She noticed RJ and Otto in the room and beckoned them to come closer. The coppery smell of blood and sweat permeated the air as he approached. Otto stayed behind him. He leaned over and beheld a round head topped with a fluff of near-white hair.

"Why, she looks just like you," marvelled Johnny. A girl, thought RJ, a bit disappointed.

"That means she's lucky," came the midwife's snide comment.

"Nobody asked you or yer broken old box any damn thing," retorted the man.

"Johnny," Eve warned.

"What're you gonna name her," he asked then.

"Vera-Ellen. Our baby girl," she cooed.

Many months and soiled diapers later they all grew used to having the little high-pitched wailer in the house. RJ peered down at the infant girl in her crib gurgling and moving her arms and legs, intelligent eyes focusing on him. She smiled in recognition, causing an involuntary smile from her older half-brother. Hmmph. Maybe it won't be so bad when she grows some, he thought. He won't be helping dress her dolls though--he drew the line at that.

Man, he was bored. He wondered what his mother and Johnny was up to. "Ma," he spoke, checking her room. Empty. Maybe they were downstairs with the clown's growing collection of oddities. The boy clopped down the stairs till he reached the bottom level and halted when he heard raised voices through the door.

"Get on the fuckin mattress," Johnny's voice bellowed.

"Goody-goody bitch, you gonna eat my pussy," he could hear his mother saying.

Rufus pushed the door open and what greeted him was a shock beyond anything he could've imagined. Eve was standing in an open robe with nothing on under it, her near-naked husband besider her. Kneeling before thme covered with cuts and bruisews was a girl he recognized--Amy, a teenager who worked at the burger joint in town. Her and her mother were always talking shit about his family and trying to start trouble. Well, now it seemed trouble had found Amy Standish. Johnny was holding a long knife against her throat and she was nude but for a pair of panties. He hands were tied behind her back, young round breasts jutting out before her.

RJ was horrified and entranced. He'd always wished for the huss to come to a bad end but this rather disturbed him.

"Oh, RJ," his mother sighed.

"I thought you was playin outside," growled the clown. Amy moaned behind her gag, her terrified eyes pleading. RJ recalled the awful things she said to him and his brother, and getting in cars with this boy and that boy yet acting holier-than-thou and hardened his heart. "Are yew gonna kill her," he asked.

"Rufus, sweetie, go back outside," suggested Eve, stepping towards him.

"No! I wanna watch," he pleaded. "I hate her. She deserves to die." He didn't know the word hypocrite yet, but he would've used it if he did. The girl vigorously shook her head, tears streaming down her face.

He stood there and took it all in--his mother and stepfather sexually abused Miss Standish and then stabbed her until she moved no more. All RJ could think was, maybe there _is_ justice in the world after all. He helped roll her battered corpse into the pond on their property. He loved and trusted his mother and stepfather implicitly.

He felt like he'd been initiated. Like he'd achieved enlightenment.


	2. Family Values

By the time RJ was 10, Otto was reading and writing with more ease than RJ himself, and Vera-Ellen was a rambunctious toddler of three years and some months. Her golden hair framed her cherubic face in cascading curls. She was truly the angel of the family and they all cherished her indulgently.

The dark-haired boy found he had mechanical aptitude, finding fulfillment in fixing things. His brother spent a lot of time outside exploring the countryside and playing in their fort. Johnny brought money in by doing odd jobs while his young wife Eve performed her 'services' for the local farmers.

Life seemed almost idyllic in this rural simplicity. This was not your typical all-American family, though, far from it. A demented, sexual sadist clown and a violent nymphomaniac mother raising two giants, one of which was horribly deformed and a bad-temper spoiled vixen-in-training mad up this unusual clan. it was decided nothing would be kept from the children, since by RJ's example theypd probably find out anyway. Their mother's guests she invited up to her room bought them new shoes and clothes, and unlike other harried women workers of that time she enjoyed her work. She'd even attracted the employ of a few pretty down-on-their-luck girls who stayed there and worked under Mother Eve's protection.

It was with one of these that Rufus lost his virginity when he was 15. He'd drank a whole jug of Will Harrison's peach moonshine and was barely aware of his own name when he stumbled into Trixie's small room. She'd been in better circumstances, came from a good home, but she didn't see eye to eye with her dad. So she split and hadn't looked back. Now in her mid-20's she'd been all over the southwest, eventually ending up here. "Rufus T. Wilson," she play-reprimanded him, helping him stand which was no mean feat considering he was already nearly 6 and a half feet tall and well over 200 pounds. He was at that gawky stage though, his bones outpacing the rest of him.

"I was just havin some alone time an' here you come bargin in drunk as a skunk," she teases him, green eyes full of mischief.

"Heh, I'm s-sorry," RJ slurs, deciding to try to find his bedroom again and nearly trips over Trixie's feet. She turns to catch him, his large body pressing against her own soft one. She slipped her arms around his already-massive chest and purred. Then she felt a hardness pressing against her abdomen. "Well now," she giggled, noticing his not unpleasant features and muscles. "Looks like I need to teach you how to use that thing." Rufus gulped and let her lead him to her well-used bed.

RJ awoke with a crushing headache in an unfamiliar room. Yawning he discovered his back was sore and he felt drained and relaxed. The dark haired head on his chest brought it all back for him. Trixie stirred and opened her big emerald eyes. "Now you're a man," she told him. If waking up feeling like you've been drug through a knothole means you're a man, he'd rather stay a boy for a while yet.

However, he finally understood why men wanted his ma enough to pay her. Sex was wonderful, he decided. He was only afraid Trixie would want him to pay her to do it again.

Rufus had nearly ceased attending school by now, having been spending most of his time working the farm and repairing farm equipment for the neighbors. He saw no more point to it. He could read, write and do basic arithmatic, what would he need with all that other shit?

The next year Uncle Charlie got out of prison and came to live with them. RJ didn't mind mind, there was plenty of room. He'd never met his stepfather's foster-brother and was rather surprised to see a garishly dressed black man standing in the doorway.

"Hi there, you must be RJ," he said cheerily. His voice was smooth and deep.

"Charlie you ol bitch hawg," Johnny called heartily, beckoning him inside. "Bout time ya got here, thought I was gonna have to go find yer dumb ass."

The man laughs and hugs Johnny. "Well hell-o," he croons when he notices the scantily clad blonde woman. "Who's this pretty young thang?"

"Oooh, I like him already," Eve titters.

"My wife Eve. Oh she don't come cheap either," he says conspiratorily. Charlie snickers.

A skittish ten-year-old blonde girl in a red print sundress with yellow flowers bounds up, looking up at the newcomer with blue-green eyes. "Well look at this cutiepie," he speaks. "Looks just like her ma."

"That's cause she's lucky," RJ pipes up pertly.

"Ain't yore big ass got summin else to do," growls his stepfather. "You still ain't too big fo' me to cram a boot all up in yer ass."

"Quite a strappin boy," Charlie observes, trying to diffuse the situation, and following the family into the living room.

Hours later finds the girl snuggled against her adored father, worn completely out after listening to Uncle Charlie's stories. RJ was rather tired himself but better able to keep awake. Tiny, silent as always, observed, he scarred face impassive. It seems Charlie wants to stay for a while, at least until he can get back on his feet.

"RJ, take me into town with yew," whined Vera-Ellen, whom Rufus had named Stinkpot, and who was batting her pretty eyes at her older brother.

"What's in it for me," queried RJ.

"I'll be your friend. And I'll do the dishes when it's your turn."

"And the trash?"

"Ok, the trash, too. but you have to buy me summin good." RJ agreed to this.

"Hey RJ," began Vera-Ellen chomping gum as they rode.

"What," RJ answered while driving the truck.

"You still thinking about doing that tow truck business," she asked him.

"Yeah Stinkpot, why?"

"What d'you think I could do when I grow up?"

RJ pondered this a moment, recalled her love of Hollywood and stars, then replied "Maybe you could be a movie star."

"Ya think so?"

"Well...maybe," he said evasively.

"I wish I'd been born a princess," she chirps.

"You're _our_ lil princess," RJ tells her sweetly. Vera-Ellen giggles at that. Yeah, she sort of grows on you after awhile.

"This is what I call the Hoochmobile," declares Charlie as he showed off his newest creation: A Chevy/Ford amalgam body with a rebuilt supercharged V8 engine. Filled with secret compartments to cache illegal alcohol it was a bootlegger's wet dream. A little side project of Johnny's ever-enterprising adopted brother, shall we say. RJ's stepfather was all-too-eager for any new moneymaking venture considering the number of persons living in the house, usually numbering between six and fourteen at any given time.

RJ had helped and had a feeling of accomplishment. "I wanna ride in it," exclaimed Vera-Ellen. She was wearing an old pair of rolled-up jeans and a t-shirt. Someday she'd make quite a woman--Charlie smiled indulgently. He'd made himself useful helping Eve run her 'business' and he was a neverending source of new ideas. If only he didn't dress so weird, thought RJ.

Rufus followed his mother and uncle into the house half-listening to their chatting about the girls and their antics. "You know, I've sampled all the girls, but ain't had the Mistress yet," he spoke smoothly as if he was discussing the weather.

"Oh, I'm outta yer price range," quipped Eve.

"Maybe you could lemme have some on credit."

"Now Charlie, business partners shouldn't fraternize," she objected.

"But I need to know how to sell ALL the gals. How can I describe the finer points to prospective clients?"

"Well...since you put it that way," concedes RJ's mother. She can't possibly be serious! Rufus thought. Hand in hand they retired to Eve's bedroom.

"Cutter's a lucky man," said Charlie in bed as he struck a match and lit a cigarrette.

Eve, bare from the waist up laughs, her full round breasts bobbing above the sheets. She was a cynic when it came to men, even though she adored them. "I bet you say that to all the girls."

RJ, unable to contain himself or keep from listening out of curiosity, bursts in the room. "Ma, this ain't right! What would Johnny say?"

"He don't give a rat's ass," Eve shot back, outraged at the intrusion. "You think I can't think for mahself, is that it? I don't need you to watch over me, Rufus Johns."

"But Ma--"

"No buts, RJ!"

"Ma, really," RJ protests. "This is weird!"

"Oh get out you big lug," she declares. Disgusted, RJ stomps off.

"Son, it don't make a bit o' difference to me. You think my dick stays dry whenever she's busy," Johnny told RJ. He was repairing the barbed wire fences which kept the cattle on the premises. RJ had expressed his concern, and the older man appreciated the sentiment but he felt he was getting too worked up over it. "Crotchety ol' Hugo couldn't do a damn wthing with her, an' i know better n' to even try. Nobody can tell that un whut to do."

Still agitated, the lad goes to the tool shed to find something to fix. Otto comes and lays a great scarred hand on RJ's ever-broadening shoulder. As always a discerning source of comfort, Rufus was glad for his prescence. Tiny then scribbled a message on the little notepad he'd begun carrying in his pocket. "Don't worry abowt it. Just do yore own thing." RJ decided these were wise words.

RJ was startled awake by the sound of his mother's screaming, which he hardly recognized at first since his ma rarely screamed about anything. Flinging the covers off him he vaulted out of bed and sprinted to his mother's room. "Ned," she was gasping. "What're you doing? gack--" Charlie had reached the door just before RJ and flung it open. One of the clients of his mother's, a trucker named Ned Turner, was bent over Eve throttling her, his pants around his ankles. Naked and tangled in the bedsheets Eve flailed her arms and legs, losing air fast.

Acting quickly Charlie took hold of the Yankee's shoulder and tumbled him backwars, head over heels into the floor. RJ rushes to his beloved mother to find her gasping for air but she indicates she'd be all right in a moment.

"What in Sam Hell is going on," came Johnny's aggarvated voice as he enters the room.

"This motherfucker was strangling Eve," Charlie spat, his foot on Ned's chest preventing him from rising.

"You Yankee piece of dog shit," roars the clown. "String him up." Rufus obliges. "Evie, sweetie, you ok," whispers her husband squeezing her hand. She nods her head finally saying "He didn't wanna pay me, the cheapass."

"Oh we'll get payment," states RJ. He cracked his knuckles for emphasis. ned was dragged kicking down the hall by the giant teenager, bailing twine twisted round his neck. Eve throws a dress on and accompanies the menfolk outside in the dark. Vera-Ellen had awoken to the commotion and was rubbing her eyes sleepily. Seeing her mother so distressed and the purple handprints round her neck she surmised the victim had tried to hurt her mother. She smugly concluded he'd soon be punished.

"You won't get away with this," the Northerner vowed, eyes bugged out with fear.

"You pathetic fuck," croaked the affronted woman standing before Ned hanging from a tree branch, feet barely touching the dirt, struggling. "Bring me the horsewhip," she told Tiny who'd appeared. He shuffled back with the implement which she used on the trucker to utmost effect. Ned was sobbing and begging her to stop after twenty lashes or so. Her nostrils flaring and eyes wild Charlie stopped her, suggesting a fitting solution would be they bury him alive. He had little stomach for torture and murder in most cases but this act of violence to his sister-in-law enraged him. She took care of him and was his business partner and he considered her a friend. She was also one hell of a fuck.

In short work it was done--the other girls watching, locked in a crate the man was buried in the upper field and left to suffocate. Little did they know the truck driver had many friends who'd come looking for him.

Gramp Hugo slept through the whole incident, of course.


	3. Ned's Dead, Baby

Eve had an almost sixth-sense when it came to some things, and she woke up that day feeling restless and antsy. She had no idea what was wrong, but communicated her anxiousness to RJ, who made sure that weapons and ammo were readily available. Charlie was rumrunning at the moment but everyone else was home going about their regular day to day business. Midday a stormcloud of dust drifted across the landscape, heralding someone approaching. Actually, about five vehicles approaching all at once.

Eleven men and two women exit the vehicles, faces hard, squinting in the sunlight like they were unused to the heat. Speaking quietly among each other they then cross the cluttered yard to the front porch. RJ was watching them from the toolshed, pistol in hand, dark eyes narrowed at these strangers. A bold character, stained trucker hat sitting atop his greasy head, bangs on the door. "Heyyy! Is this where the whore lives? I've come for my brother. All the hillbillies around here say he was last seen heading this way. Where's my brother, whore?"

"Fuck you an' yer brother," came surly Hugo's voice from inside. Now that's one dumb sumbitch that don't give a fuck, RJ said to himself.

"We just want Ned," called one of the women, the younger one. "Tell us where he's at."

"He came and had himself a good ol' time, then left without payin," grouched Grampa. "And here we just got this new phone to pay for an' shit!"

"Bust it down," Ned's brother tells his companions. They began pounding the old wooden door. Some of Eve's girls could be heard squealing and running for cover, amongst the hearty bellowing of Johnny declaring some shitheads were breaking and entering.

Ohh, no. Breaking and entering in Texas is like cattle rustlin' a couple generations before. That can get you killed faster than anything.

The door soon gave way with a crack, followed by the boom of a shotgun. Two of the Yankees dropped like a sack of potatoes. "Bruce," the older woman shouted at Ned's brother. "Take these fuckers out!"

RJ rushed them from behind firing his pistol, taking out a couple more.

Crimson sprayed all over the porch and doorstop, the doorway getting clogged with bodies. After firing his initial shots he darted around the left side of the house for cover. He'd succeeded in distracting some of the attackers, but several had entered the house and were firing shots. Cursing under his breath he fervently hoped that his family had found cover. Reloading the big pistol he darted back to the front porch again and found all hell had broke lose in his home. Grampa was hiding out in the kitchen and popping out to shoot at the intruders, hollering and cursing all the while.

RJ could hear Johnny upstairs, calling to Hugo to get his ass up there.

Shouts, struggles, girls screaming, it all happened so fast. RJ charged them from behind, shooting and hitting them with his fists like bear paws. He heard his mother whooping and letting lose with her weapon. Then he went down after something hit his head, hard.

RJ opened his eyes, vision focusing on the ceiling in his room. Why did his head hurt so much, he wondered--then remembered. "Ma! Tiny," he called, and his mother appeared at his bedside. "RJ, sweetie! Are you all right?" She had her worried mom look going on.

"Is everyone all right? What happened," he wondered, rubbing his sore head.

Eve pursed her pink lips, obviously holding something back. "We got the best of 'em, that's fer sure. Me an Tiny and Johnny are ok...Hugo got a slug in th' thigh but he's doin better. But..well, sweetie Pam is dead, and so is Trixie. I'm sorry but she lost her head and didn't stay down like we told 'er to...aww, RJ," she spoke to his distressed expression. Her mother's heart went out to him and she cradled his bruised head in her lap. Ah, first love, she thought.

After he was done weeping he asked if any of Ned's buddies were alive.

"There's a sorry-looking specimen Hugo's been workin on, and the two bitches," she answered.

Pure hatred slid over his strong features, dark brown eyes glittering with malice. "I'm gonna pay em a visit."

Still a bit woozy from his head wound Rufus made his way to the toolshed where the two females were being held--looked like his Grampa and Johnny had already had hold of them. Their clothes were in tatters, their inner thighs stained with blood. That's not what he wanted them for, however...they were gonna suffer for taking Trixie away from him. The younger one had black hair and tried twisting away from him in her bonds as he approached, the older one had bottle-blonde short hair and eyed him with fear mixed with unadulterated hatred.

He picked up a rusty gardening trowel and smiled, something that along with talking he did rarely. He could actually be quite handsome but he definately wasn't at the moment...nope, the devilish look he was displaying was terrible indeed.

thuk, thuk, thuk

Scream

The black-haired girl screamed and screamed, the older woman yelling through her gag as he stabbed the younger one. Over and over, blood flinging onto the shed walls and RJ's clothes until the screaming stopped. "Fuckin cunts," he spat. He threw down the now bent-up garden tool and balled up his fist. For the next few minutes he slammed it into the face of the old broad, after the first couple blows her head sagged and stopped flying back and simply lolled until his hand ached and her face was unrecognizable. Looking down he picked tooth fragments out of his knuckles and felt a lot better.

He met his brother Otto as he was leaving and told him the young one needed to be disposed of and that he could do what he wished with her. Perking up a bit the scarred giant shambled to where she was hanging and undid the clasps. He was dragging her by the ankles toward the woods. Dead girls don't say no, after all.

Angelic Vera-Ellen was having a bit of fun with the last man left as RJ popped his head in the cellar to have a look. Hugo was encouraging her, showing her how to handle the knife and where vital spots were located.


	4. A Happy New Addition

The bubbly blonde girl began to lengthen and grow into an attractive young woman as puberty approached. Rufus noticed this with some trepidation, for he knew she'd draw all sorts of men like moths to a flame. He wondered how many asskickings he'd half to administer before she got grown..

"Aw, Vera-Ellen, sweetie, you gonna haveta watch that temper o' yours," Eve admonished the girl gently. She'd gotten into trouble once again at school and been sent home.

"I know. I'm sorry, Mama," she said, contrite for the moment.

"C'mon Stinkpot," said RJ heading outside. "You can help me pick some strawberries for Ma. Maybe get on her good side," he chuckled.

"Aw, Vera-Ellen, sweetie, you gonna haveta watch that temper o' yours," Eve admonished the girl gently. She'd gotten into trouble once again at school and been sent home.

"I know. I'm sorry, Mama," she said, contrite for the moment.

"C'mon Stinkpot," said RJ heading outside. "You can help me pick some strawberries for Ma. Maybe get on her good side," he chuckled.

Charlie escaped by hobbling out to the Hoochmobile and God only knows how he drove the car to safety but by cracky he did. Johnny had been focused on his shivering daughter with her eyes glazed over, traumatized by Charlie leering at her, her father's outburst and the tussle. Her mother was currently away visiting one of her fellow prostitutes she used to 'work' with and hadn't returned home yet. One of the younger whores helped Vera-Ellen dress and she slowly began to come back to herself.

It seems Charlie thought it would be fun to take pictures of the barely pubescent girl for his own use and to sell to certain sickos he knew of. Eve was livid when she got back and had to be restrained; she was ready to jump in the truck and hunt down the man right then but Cutter had cooled down somewhat and it seemed their daughter would be all right.

Indeed, in spite of all the clan grew and prospered, Vera-Ellen made it through childhood without too much mayhem and destruction, and Rufus started his tow truck business. It was a long time before Johnny could trust anyone else again.

Cutter had taken to long trips to secure victims, cars to steal and sell, or petty thievery, which started to stretch to longer and longer times away. Eve amused herself with this farmer or that mechanic, but her arms (and legs) were always open when he returned, and he was usually all-too-eager for his beautiful whore when he returned. RJ missed the big blustery clown when he was away; often good conversation and advice was hidden in his obscene, cantankerous mouthings.

Then one day, when Vera-Ellen was about 16 or so, Johnny appeared on the doorstep after a particularly long absence with a guest in tow. RJ was outside working on a customer's car when he saw the pair exit the stolen automobile and walk to the front porch. Wiping sweat and grease from his hands and forehead he moves toward them, curious and watchful. He'd finally reached his full height and filled out with adulthood, a massive muscled wrestler of a man, and he knew how to throw his weight around.

"Well, look, there's RJ," exclaimed Cutter, directing the other man's attention to the approaching behemoth. He came to stand a foot or two away, looking down at the stranger who appraised him fearlessly.

This guy was cocky, to be sure. RJ sniffed.

He was long and lean with piercing blue eyes and short pale hair, well-defined cheekbones and jawline contrasted with sensuous lips that stretched to form a toothy grin. "This here is Otis, RJ," explained Johnny, smiling and relaxed. "This is my stepson Rufus Jr."

"Boy, you must grow em big around here," guffawed the strange-looking creature.

"Wait'll ye see Tiny, the otherun," responded the clown, opening the door. RJ was right on their heels, ready for trouble. He didn't like the look of this pale, washed-out smartassy guy. Nossir.

"Johnny, that you," came a purring singsong. The overblown owner of the voice strutted into view, a somewhat older prostitute in feathers and lace. The stranger smiled at her. "Well who's this?"

"...An' this is my lil angel, Vera-Ellen," finished Eve proudly with her arm around the tall, slender teenager. "My baby."

Otis gazed at her a moment and Johnny narrowed his eyes. He'd hate to go through another mess over his pretty girlchild, but instead of lust there was a connection in their glances, an understanding. "Hello Angel Baby," he said in his gravelly voice. She smiled back at him.

"Otis will be staying with us seein as he has no family of his own," Cutter announced at supper, RJ almost choking in mid-bite. "You can have one o' the rooms upstairs," he told him. How could he have grown so close to such a strange one, RJ thought. He was wound tight and his intensity was overwhelming, yet Johnny was a match for him in charisma. The two had actually hit it off right from the start, and now Otis B. Driftwood had got himself a family at last.

Things definately livened up around the homestead with the new addition, and the newly named Angel Baby had a new older brother she bonded with. RJ and Otis after a shaky start became friends, each one the opposite of the other.

Otis named everyone, his fertile brain coming up with all sorts of schemes and vileness to get up to. Rufus began to admire the wraith after a drunken fracas they both engaged in...Otis nearly got his arm broke but never gave up. He did funny stuff, at least funny to Rufus. All the writing, photography, sculpting.

"Yer doin _what_," wondered Otis in his high-toned voice. "Why don'tya just join the circus? Hmm, that might not be such a bad idea..." he trailed off, actually considering it.

Rufus thought it was a fun idea, joining a wrestling outfit. He's plenty large and strong enough, and it would be good money as well.

Several weeks training later, the Deadwood Brawler made his debut at a high school gymnasium, his blue and white mask hiding his craggy face. He lost the match of course, but things wouldn't always be like that, of course. As he got more popular he'd win matches and more money. The whole idea of the masked wrestler intrigued him and throwing guys around the ring was a shitload of fun. Otis showed up to a couple of matches and had a better time than he was willing to admit. The Leader of the Revolution shouldn't be at a small time wrestling match, but curiosity killed the cat, after all.

Hugo, Otis and Angel Baby travelled to Arkansas to see RJ wrestle in a somewhat large stadium and it was big event for all of them. Grampa specifically wanted to see midget wrestlers and was finally satisfied when there was at last a midget tag-team match. One of the wrestlers apparently took an interest in RJ's beautiful teenage sister, and it happened to be one asshole known in the grappling world as the Mangler. Before it was time for their exhibit he walked up to Rufus conversing with Vera-Ellen. "Hey man, can I fuck your sister," he said only half-jokingly, sizing her up like a piece of juicy steak.

Rufus slitted his mysterious dark eyes at the big blond oaf and said, surprisingly enough. "Sure. You can fuck my sister," he chipped the words as if out of stone.

"Yeah, he wishes," Baby snorts, dismissing the idiot wrestler.

Now was his chance to cut loose, Rufus thought as he approached the ring, one the wrestlers had helped set up themselves. Otis and Angel were whooping and hollering for him in their seats, and Grampa Hugo lobbed a box of popcorn in his foe's direction. He was as cantankerous and wild-eyed as always but was growing frail and stooped as he aged. It sobered RJ.

The Deadwood Brawler vs. the Mangler.

After some initial feints and tentative holds they began grappling in earnest. This time however Rufus had no intention of following the training, he was gonna 'shoot' as they call it--really fight the asshole. After a minute or two the Mangler realized this, but instead of calling quit or alerting anyone he decided he could take the darkhaired behemoth. Rufus (and Otis too, for that matter) had been letting their hair grow out and his opponent tried grabbing for some of it that wasn't hidden under the mask. He caught a fist to the cheekbone for his troubles. Rufus then recieved a hard blow to the stomach followed by a leg sweep that deposited him butt-first on the mat.

After a few minutes of this even Otis as unfamiliar as he was with the sport knew something was wrong. Baby caught his worried frown as they observed the match. Was her brother in trouble?

The blond man was now behind Rufus, having gotten him in an arm-hold and pushing him down to one knee. He leaned and hissed in RJ's ear, "After I'm done with you, jobber, I'mma have my way with that simple, giggly sister o' yours."

Instead of trying to twist away which was what the Mangler expected Rufus launched himself backwards, sending them both bouncing off the mat. He quickly recovered, getting to his feet and kicking the fucker in the side, then rolling him over on his belly. Stepping over his prostrate form facing his feet RJ stooped and grabbed his ankles, pulling them toward him, which put pressure on the lower back and hips--it was called the Boston Crab. It also effectively keeps the victim from getting away or doing anything to their opponent.

"Oh..yeah...," grunted RJ, grinning evilly. He put a foot on the man's lower back, continuing to pull on his legs. "You can fuck my sister..." He stepped onto the man's spine and jerked with all his might. Sickening cracks resounded as the mans hip was dislocated and lower vertebrae cracked. "...If anything below yer waist works after this." He dropped the man's now-useless legs and sauntered out of the ring, the referee after a moment's shock shouting for an ambulance and the audience too stunned to react.

"Whooo bloodlettin'," bellowed Hugo, who got poked in the side by Otis who didn't want any moret attention drawn to them. "Feed 'im to the lions!"

Otis and Angel Baby glanced at one another and decided it was time to go. They slipped around back where the dressing rooms (such as they was) were located and found RJ, smug expression on his chiseled face, was putting on regular clothes. "Good," Baby said when they entered the room. "We better get the hell outta here."

"So much for professional wrestling," Rufus wryly said.

"Hey I want one o' those midgets! He could fetch me mah beer n' cereal," protested Hugo as he was herded toward the exit.


	5. RJ Gets His Groove On

RJ was laying in his broken-down bed (he was hard on bed frames and springs) staring up at the ceiling, which was unusual for him. He usually kept busy with his hands or the animals or helping Tiny with the garden or fixing something. His mother banged on the door, saying sweetly, "Rufus dear, could ya come down? We have company."

"And I care why," came the impertinent response.

"It's a _girrrl_," she trilled. "And she wants to talk to yewww."

A girl? What halfway decent girl would come alone to THIS house of her own accord? He mumbled assent and rummaged around for a shirt to put on, finally locating a semi-clean checkered flannel shirt with the sleeves torn off. His arms were so big they busted out of them anyways and sauntered downstairs.

Waiting for him was a tall slender female with dark shoulder-length hair wearing a light blue one-piece summer dress curiously paired with some muddy workboots. "Howdy," she calls warmly, her voice low-pitched and assured, strange coming from her wispy silouhette. "My name is Pam Tiller. Yore the tow-truck guy, ain't you?" Rufus nods his head in the affirmative. "You fix stuff, too, right?" Another nod. Chewing her supple lower lip she finally speaks again. "Well, I was wondering if you could come have a look at Dad's haybailer, it's acting all ganky and none of us knows much about 'em. I can pay you well; we had a good turnaround at the auction." Her family sold high quality beef cattle.

All RJ knew was that he really, really wanted to suck on that lightly glossed lower lip, and some more body parts besides. But of course no pretty lady would be here to check him out, it just had to be business. Sighing, RJ tells her he could go out there tomorrow morning since he wasn't doing anything then. Brightening, Pam's face was lit up with a beauty that almost took his breath away. "Thank ye so much," she burbles, taking his huge, bear-paw hand in her own delicate one and squeezing it. She was outside starting up the old Plymouth she drove before RJ could say anything else.

"RJ, I think she likes you," Eve giggles. Now she was known as Mother Firefly, Rufus being called Rufus T. Firefly by the imaginative Otis who named them all. Johnny, or Cutter, was called the Marx character J.T. Spaulding, an apt name for the clown character he'd resurrected.

"Ma, don't start," he turned to go back up to his room.

Mother, following him in her hip-swinging way says to his back, "Oh come on, Rufus, surely you need a girlfriend by now!"

"Haven't seen ya around much," Otis said idly, working on the raccoon he'd stuffed. Taxidermy was something he and RJ surprisingly had in common and Otis had been teaching the large man all sorts of things.

"I've been busy."

"I hear it's a broad," the pale man glanced up with his icy eyes, a thick eyebrow raised.

Damn that Vera-Ellen, Rufus thought. She can't keep nothing to herself. RJ didn't reply but went looking for the tools he originally came to find.

"I've seen her runnin' after those big Herefords her daddy raises. Nice, kinda skinny but nice. So you stickin' it to her or what?"

"Shut up, Otis," he growls.

"She'd make a fine specimen, I'd love to try my skills on her instead of dogs, coons an' jackalopes."

Rufus Jr. was on Otis before he could bat another faded eyeball and had him by the throat. "I don't ask for much you cocky prick," he hissed in Otis' surprised face. "An' I work more'n ten people round here. So you can back...the fuck...off."

Otis didn't offer any resistance but cracked a crooked-toothed grin at the much-bigger man. "Don't worry, RJ. I wouldn't think of messin' up yer lil honey. 'Less she does ye wrong."

The cowherd girl Pam seemed to take an interest in RJ's likes and didn't even shrink away from Otto, who had taken to wearing a leather mask to cover his self-consciousness. Rufus didn't know what to do, she was completely innocent and had no idea of the true nature of the Fireflys. Eve was sugary whenever the young lady was about and she knew of the matriarch's 'business' but remained unopinionated on the subject as of yet.

Curiosity was what drove her initially, that and true need to get a problem with the haybailer solved. But she was intrigued by the dark-haired behemoth of few words, and attracted as well. She pulled up the dusty driveway one particularly hot day and stepped out of her vehicle. She was wearing rolled-up jeans and a thin cotton blouse with the sleeves rolled up, dark brown hair back in a ponytail. Long slim neck, long arms, long legs, everything was lanky about her but she still managed to be quite pretty in a down-home way. "Hi, Tiny," she called, her big hearty voice always a startling contrast to her appearance. The deformed giant shuffled toward her, smiling. He lifted his big mangled hand in salute.

"Where's RJ," she asked the towering man. Tiny pointed toward a car up on slats not far, a man under it working intently. "Thanks," she said, putting a smile on Otto's scarred face. He enjoyed her prescence.

"Ruuufus," she singsonged as she moved closer to the jacked-up car.

"Hi," he said, frugal as ever with speech. He crawled out from under the automobile and wiped the grease from his hands. Pam leapt into his prodigious arms, giggling. "Let's go for a walk," she suggested. He grunted his agreement.

"RJ," she said thoughtfully as they strolled the field behind the farmhouse. "Why can't I get more than two words outta you most days? Sometimes I can get a good conversation from ya, but I just don't get it."

He shrugged and pondered it a moment. "Never had reason to say much, I guess," he replies. "Ain't very smart like Otis or funny like Angel or Grampa."

"I think yer interesting," she says, stopping on the old dog trail and looking up at him.

"I think yer pretty interestin, too," he said with warmth, holding her to him. "I can't figger you out, though."

She laughed at that, then led him to the shade of a massive tree and sat down. "Good," she said pertly. "C'mere, ya lug." He plopped beside her, staring at her small breasts defined through the thin cotton blouse, molded to her form from sweat.

He leaned forward and kissed her, covering her lean form with his own muscular one, thinking in the back of his mind that he might crush her but she didn't complain, only kissed him back with as much fervor. He undid the buttons on her shirt and pushed her bra aside to nuzzle her small but well-formed breasts. She pulled the tight t-shirt over his head and ran her palms over his back, feeling the bunched, powerful muscles under his tanned skin. "Ahhh...RJ...my mysterious Rufus...," she moaned under his caresses.

He soon lost himself in her embrace, her arms, legs and vagina walls all welcome him.

Pressed against her on the leafy ground he took her, if you would call something being given freely that, but he plunged into her and she rocked with him, clinging to him with arms and long thin legs like she was drowning and he was her buoy. His own cries mingled with hers, he surprised himself with his strained vocalizations as he rode the crest of excitement. He felt her shudder beneath him as his own breath and pace quickened and realized she had her second orgasm and he felt his own come upon him, his life essence spewing out in a torrent and he collapsed boneless on her.

"RJ...heh...yore suffocatin me, dear..."

"Sorry," he mumbled, raising up and falling over beside her. He felt good. Tired, but good.

Some days after that...

RJ was shovelling meatloaf, peas and carrots into his face at suppertime; Pam was digging in almost as fast. He wondered where she put it all--he was several inches taller and a hundred or so pounds heavier than her. Angel Baby was asking what Pam used to make her hair look so smooth while Grampa Hugo was making a mess all over the table, floor, and himself. He'd reached the stage in his life where he was old, tired, cranky, and just plain old didn't give a shit.

"So when're you and that oaf grandson o' mine gettin married," he asked her amid chewing meatloaf.

"Ummm...," she said, choking on milk.

"Shut up, Grampa," complained Rufus.

"Let's not be embarrassin the lil' lady," chastised Eve. "Come on sweetie, eat up, you need some more meat on your bones!"

"What's in this meatloaf, it's awful good," praised the guest, eager to change the subject. "I'd like to get the recipe."

"Oh, you could say it's a family secret," Mother Firefly giggled. "We know prime meat. But o'course you understand a good cut of meat, yerself."

A thin shadow fell across Rufus and Pam's plate, causing both to look up.

"Hi Otis," chirped Vera-Ellen.

"Otis, how good of you to join us," purred Mama, obviously pleased. "It's truly a family gatherin, now. I made some o' my special meatloaf."

"Well, I can't miss entertainin' company," he said in his rough-hewn voice, which matched his raggedy, angular appearance.

He scooted a chair to the other side of Pam and got himself a plate of food. "So, you know meat, do ya," he asked her.

"Well, my family _does_ breed cattle. Longhorns, Herefords, Black Angus."

"Ah," he breathes while eating. Sometimes he'd forget to eat, there was always so much to do, so many people to kill, er, make into art. "So you love that meat." RJ rolled his eyes. "Is my brother meaty enough for ya?"

Baby giggled and milk came out her nose, then she giggled some more.

"Sure, I like em big an' beefy," she said, staring right at the pale madman. "I like somethin I can sink my teeth into."

"Damn, I dunno if I'm hungry or horny now," declared Hugo.

Otis leaned toward the tall girl, smiling. "Would you like to see some of my work," he asked sweetly.

"What is it you do," she asked back coquettishly.

"Taxidermy. I stuff things. I'm also an artist."

"Taxidermy? Like deer and things?"

"I could stuff somethin for ya. Beaver, maybe," he put a bony hand on her knee. Without flinching she took her fork and unobtrusively jabbed the top of his hand with it. He also didn't flinch but removed the appendage from her person and resumed eating.

"Bah, shut up and eat yer food," groused Hugo.

"Mind yore own business, Hugo," warned Otis.

"Fuck the hell off!"

"You worthless piece o' shit, com'ere and I'll show you fuck the hell off," Otis spat. Hugo's response landed next to Otis' hand, the one that had just been forked, in the form of a steak knife that embedded itself the surface of the old solid oak dinner table. Otis started to get up and Eve restrained him. Rufus looked from one to the other in dismay and Pam began laughing. She'd seen her father and brothers do the same thing to each other.

"So where's Sugar Britches," asked Otis. He watched RJ as he worked on the tractor.

"Pam? Her an' Baby went into town. Girl stuff like shopping I guess."

"Yanno...I kinda like her," the longhaired heathen mused.

"Otis...," intoned Rufus, his great darkhaired head poking up to eye Otis. The two men were very different and both stubborn, but they were part of a surprisingly loving (albeit psychotic) family.

"I was serious. She's quite the sassy thing. Was you thinking of...y'know, marrying her?" Otis was attempting to breach the subject of, 'How are we going to let her be part of the family without getting in trouble or killing her?'

Sighing, Rufus replies, "I don't know if I'll ever get married. I'd never have time for anything with a wife and younguns runnin around. 'Sides, she's a real sweet girl."


	6. Fuck With the Best, Die Like the Rest

One day Rufus wanted to surprise Pam and decided to follow her as she made her morning round at her family's ranch. She was riding her spotted mare, then dismounted, shading her eyes as if she was watching for someone, which she in fact was. The someone was a man RJ had seen before, but didn't really know. What he did know was the way he felt when he witnessed how she welcomed him, with an embrace and a passionate kiss. His heart dropped into his feet. He started to turn away but instead elected to wait and watch.

He was afraid they would actually have sex or something but after some walking around a bit and chit-chatting nothing like that occured, only another drawn-out kiss before the guy left. It was enough. Pain and rage boiled deep in the pit of his gut, and he stepped out of his hiding place and saw her horrified expression as she spotted him. "RJ," she said simply.

"Why," came his question.

"Rufus, I--"

"What's this," he grabbed her hand and looked pointedly at the ring there. A big one. "When was you gonna tell me? After the honeymoon?"

"Well, everytime I mentioned settling down you'd get sleepy or find something else to talk about. I ain't gettin' any younger, RJ! I want a family."

"You're a miserable bitch," he said bitterly, cursing his luck with women. "Why? Why fuck with me like this? Why'd you come to my fuckin house that day? Come into my fuckin' life and now leave, just like that!" She started to say she was sorry but was halted when she got a huge fist buried into her midsection. Her reaction was shock as she doubled up, then fell forward trying to breathe. Then he had her by the hair jerking her upright just like the field was a wrestling ring, and nearly broke her jaw with another powerful blow. He left her sobbing and retching in the cow pasture and went home, disgusted.

The whole family was baffled by RJ's behavior, he wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep, had lost interest in his work. Tiny came and sat beside him as he sulked beside the creek bed, putting a heavily scarred arm around him as if he were a child. It was comforting, but he didnt' want to talk about it. He scribbled, "It's that gurl, ain't it? She broke up with you?"

"She's got another man. A better one, I guess," he muttered.

Tiny hugged him again, then shuffled away when no more information was forthcoming. And of course it wasn't long before Otis sought him out. "Why you so tore up," he asked him, irritated. "She can't be a part of this family. If she's sneakin' around like that now, she can't be trusted with our secrets. Want me to take care of her?"

"Yes. Kill her," he said angrily. "But no fuckin' her."

"RJ, I'm hurt. My brother's woman? I wouldn't never. After she's dead, though...that don't count."

"Please, I wanna talk to RJ," pleaded a penitent Pam.

"He don't wanna talk to you," stated Angel Baby, curling her lip at the other lady, who was sporting a swollen face from RJ's anger.

"Baby, let 'er in," commanded Otis who'd appeared behind his adopted sister. Rolling her blue-green eyes she obliged. "Follow me," he told her. She moved carefully, as if she was sore, and he smiled when she wasn't looking. Seems RJ lost his temper with her. Rufus could hear everything from his room upstairs, could hear them coming up the stairs. Soon the door swung open and Pam entered, wearing a plain t-shirt and blue jeans, hair unadorned and falling around her shoulders. After everything was said and done he still found her beautiful and intriguing, but sentimental time was over. Yes, very much over. "Rufus," she said gladly, stepping toward where he was seated at the desk.

She was stopped by a knife blade held to her slim white throat. Otis' wiry arm was around her chest in an instant, holding her to him. "Now no sudden moves, sugarpie," he whisped hoarsely in her ear. "I'm a bit jumpy, y'see."

"Ohhh," she sobbed. "What's going on? Please, RJ, make him stop!"

"You done fucked up," RJ told her, his face and tone neutral. His dark eyes glittered with hurt and malice, however.

"RJ, I'm sorry! I shouldn't have done that to you, it was wrong. I came to apologize," she burst into tears. Otis snorted with mirth and with his blade caused a tiny trickle of blood to well at her throat and fall down to her white t-shirt, coloring it with drops of red. "RJ," she said desperately. "I miscarried your baby. When you hit me I freaked out and I lost our baby...but it was really my fault..oh RJ," she wept.

"Fuck, it coulda been mine, Otis', that dude, who knows? It don't matter anyways. Now...you gonna die."

"I bet yer insides are as pretty as yer outside," Otis mused, cutting her t-shirt.

Vera-Ellen entered the room, interrupting Otis' sport of cutting Pam's skin and clothes. She looked at the teenager hopefully--Pam's mother was often a restraining influence on the rambunctious and hot-tempered males of the family. "Baby! Make them stop, please help me," she gasped in the arms of Otis, his knife appearing once again at her neck.

"What you boys up to," Angel Baby demanded, looking from Rufus to Otis. Pam ran forward, throwing her bony arms around Baby and sobbing incoherantly. "You poor thing," she tsked, stroking her hair. "Guys, you really need to stop fuckin' around." Then she pushed the traumatized female back to her adopted brother who held her arms behind her back. "Let the bitch know ya mean business," she she cold-cocked her, leaving Pam dazed and seeing stars on the dusty floor.

Rufus opened his eyes and yawned, smacking his lips and looking about. He was sitting in the floor leaning against his badly abused bed, his sister nestled lovingly in the crook of his massive arm. They were sticky with blood and wrung-out from the mass drinking and torture of his now-ex-girlfriend. He felt the bed squeak from a spry body moving about, and heard Otis snicker, "Man, I can't believe you'd date a girl who wears underwear like that. Plain jain cotton torpedo boobs hahahaha...lovely underpants big enough to fit _you_, RJ."

"You're such an asshole," he observed groggily.

Rufus could make out some muffled moans and labored breathing and asked, "She still alive?"

Otis poked her. "Heh, yep. Prob'ly not fer long, though." The wraith grasped her jaw in a crimson-covered hand and peered into her glassy eyes. She didn't appear to be the same girl she was yesterday, swollen, beaten, cut and molested (Spaulding had popped upstairs to put various objects in her various orifices) not to mention strapped to RJ's bed and stripped down to her bra and panties, she barely had enough strength to even groan as Otis pinched and twisted her nipple.

RJ nudged his little sister and she went thump onto the floor without a visible sign. Alcohol comatose, it seems. He took his shirt off and put it on Baby's near-naked form, she was only wearing a nightie and her panties.

Otis was carving designs into her flesh when he noticed Pam stiffen up. Her swan song was a sad gurgling rattle in her chest, and she breathed no more. "Hup, looks like too much fun for the lil lady," observed Otis drily.

RJ had a certain grim satisfaction at that news, but he was unaccountably sorrowful as well. Perhaps he should've married her and settled down, but she just wasn't Firefly material. She fucked him over, and he didn't take that lightly. He heard the rip of Otis cutting Pam's remaing shreds of clothing off her corpse and the bed begain squeaking as he fucked her. "Damn, Driftwood, right on my bed," snorted the behemoth as his head bounced in time to Otis' thrusts.

He daydreamed for a time then snapped to attention at his foster brother's howls of ecstasy. His head bopped with Otis rolling off the dead body and scratching his belly. RJ lumbered to his feet feeling a bit icky. When was the last time he had a bath? He couldn't remember. "Hey RJ," came Otis' voice playfully. "Wanna have a go? It's not like she can stop ya. Best one I've had in a while."

"Nah," RJ replied. "Guess I better dump her someplace, though," RJ reasoned, turning and going back to the bed. He undid the restraints on one of Pam's wrists when Otis laid a hand on his arm. "It's for the best," he told him. It was Otis' way of consoling the huge man.

"Hey," came Johnny's irritated voice from downstairs. "Any o' you numbnuts know where this big asshole chained up in the bathroom came from?"

RJ looks at Otis who grins. "Well, couldn't just let the other man get away with it, could I? He could cause trouble for us, anyways."

"Dammit," swore the big man, shaking his head.

"Think about it, ya big ape," Otis sat up on the bed naked, his face earnest. "It could be put around that the lovebirds ran away and eloped." Then he laughed his harsh, guttural laugh.

"Hey," hollered Cutter again, tromping up the stairs. "I can't take a good piss with that motherfucker chained to the shower starin' at me!"

"Look, the mail run today," burbled Vera-Ellen cheerfully. "We got a whole Ruggsville County phonebook!"

"So," Otis said, picking his teeth with his butcher knife.

"So, we can call people! Teehehe." Curious, the pale creature and RJ follow her to the back room where an old rolltop desk and phone sat. Leafing through the book she picked a number and dialed it. She then faked a screaming orgasm and hung up, giggling.

"Look, the mail run today," burbled Vera-Ellen cheerfully. "We got a whole Ruggsville County phonebook!"

"So," Otis said, picking his teeth with his butcher knife.

"So, we can call people! Teehehe." Curious, the pale creature and RJ follow her to the back room where an old rolltop desk and phone sat. Leafing through the book she picked a number and dialed it. She then faked a screaming orgasm and hung up, giggling.

"Gerry Ober," she went on. "It's Goober," then she called him and had phone sex with him until she got bored and hung up. Rufus and Otis were holding their sides laughing at her antics. "Oh, wait," she declared, running to the bathroom and returning with a package of toilet paper. "I'm callin' the toilet paper company!"

She dialed the 800 number and spoke in a phony British accent. "Um, yes, I'd like to ask someone what is it they put in their toilet paper that makes me bum itch?"

RJ wiped tears as Otis, indignant, jumps up and shouts, "You retard, that don't sound like an English accent!"

"Shut up," she hisses, continuing to harangue the poor customer service person with her baloney accent.

Years pass...

Cutter eventually made up with Charlie, who would come and visit from time to time. Things between the estranged family members improved to the point when Baby reached legal age she went to dance at the Frontier Fun Town Charlie owned whenever she wanted quick cash. Then came the road adventure Angel Baby and Otis took culminating in meeting and falling out with Dr. Satan and the Professor and fleeing back to the family home in Ruggsville.

While they were gone RJ threw himself into his work and hobbies, hunting and fishing and stuffing animals. Johnny and Eve separated, finding their lives growing apart. He moved into the investment he'd been cooking up, the Museum of Monsters and Madmen, taking up with a vagrant named Emmanuel Ravelli. He planned to turn his unhealthy interest in in freaks, deformities and serial killers into something lucrative. Or at least fun. Mother Firefly 'retired' from her busines, having saved up a substantial sum of money buried around the yard and stuffed in the mattress of her antique bed.

Late evening finds RJ donning his bearskin he'd taken to wearing since the weather was shitty and raining, armed his rifle and handgun, sheathes his knife and loads up the tow truck. Baby, excited, had told him of Spaulding calling about some fresh meat heading their way and he dropped his sister off at the predetermined spot, turned around and drove a short distance back toward his house. She was armed with her knives, revolver, cowboy hat and child's umbrella.

It slowly grew dark, finding RJ kneeling behind cover watching the road intently. At last came the car threading its way carefully down the muddy dirt road. Steadying his firearm and taking careful aim he pulls the trigger, careful since he didn't want to kill or hurt his sister who was sure to be inside. He then hightailed it back home.

The end...or the beginning..


End file.
